


If You Only Knew

by shrodingersgay



Series: Interwebs One-Shots [1]
Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, some dumb boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 20:52:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14881002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shrodingersgay/pseuds/shrodingersgay
Summary: Ned likes Spider-Man and Peter is jealous of his own alter-ego.





	If You Only Knew

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Peter loved listening to Ned talk about things he was passionate about—he really did. He was more than happy to let him info dump all day, but hearing about how big of a crush he had on Spider-Man was getting old. Especially considering that he was Spider-Man and Ned didn’t know it. He also didn’t know Peter had been sort of in love with him for a while. 

At first it had been really exciting, finding out your crush liked you back always was, but as time dragged on he sort of got jealous of Spider-Man. Ned didn’t know it was him, so therefore he didn’t really like him. It was kind of ridiculous and infuriating to be jealous of yourself, but that’s where Peter found himself. He was practically fighting himself for his own damn crush.

He let his head fall onto the lunch table with a frustrated groan, seething in the knowledge that Ned liked his alter ego and not him. Of course this was when Ned showed up. 

“Hey Peter, what’s up? Are you upset or something?” Ned said, his brow furrowed in concern. 

Peter’s head shot up quickly, and he plastered a smile on his face. “Yeah, I’m fine, just tired,” he replied quickly. Ned looked dubious but shrugged and sat down next to him anyway.

“So did you see the new video of Spider-Man that was trending last night?” Peter had to refrain from making a sour face. The video wasn’t even really impressive, it had just been him swinging from a few buildings before doing a couple flips. It kind of made him feel more like some incredibly popular parkour stunter and not a hero. Still, there was a bit of flattery that came with knowing Ned thought it was impressive. Even if he didn’t know it was Peter. 

“Yeah, it was cool I guess,” He said with a small shrug.

“You guess? It was awesome! He’s a real life superhero for our city!” He paused for a moment, “I mean not because he can do flips, but what he does because he can do flips. You know there was that article a little bit ago about him stopping several robberies?” 

“I know, you told me already, I guess it is pretty cool.” Ned dropped it after that, probably catching that Peter wasn’t too enthusiastic about Spider-Man at the moment. Ned quickly started talking about their classes instead. Peter felt a little bad, but there was also a bit of relief that came with the subject change. The rest of the lunch period went on without consequence, and things seemed to mellow out for the rest of the day. 

Over the next few weeks Peter seemed to catch himself doing a little bit more showing off when he noticed people filming him. He supposed it was because he did like the praise he got from Ned, his soreness on the subject had more to do with not getting recognition for it. Normally that wouldn’t be something he cared about, but he wanted Ned to like him, not Spider-Man. 

The extra showing off did seem to spring him into more conversations about how much Ned was crushing on Spider-Man and how cool he was, which only spurred Peter into being more frustrated that he was competing with himself. Happy ended up hearing quite a bit about his dilemma in spam texts, but Peter still got no response. He supposed that was fair.

Soon enough, Peter was getting some real action on a patrol, someone was trying to rob a bank and he managed to be there to stop it. 

Unfortunately chasing down the robber didn’t go so well.

He almost caught the guy before slamming into a building arm first, hard, then falling into a dumpster, and cutting his leg open. 

Peter swung limply, wincing with every movement. He was pretty sure one of his arms was fractured, but he needed to get somewhere safe to take care of it. He knew he was close to Ned’s house, and in his pain induced delirium, that seemed the safest place right now. He’d figure out what to say when he got there. 

Eventually, with a lot more pain than was probably entirely necessary, Peter ended up at Ned’s window. He tapped lightly on the window with his good arm, and saw a bit of movement from behind the curtains. When they were pulled apart he was greeted with a very confused and then surprised Ned. 

Ned quickly opened the window and greeted with “Holy shit! Spider-Man?” before Peter all but tumbled in. He winced, realizing the cut on his leg from the dumpster was a lot worse than he had originally thought. 

“What are you doing here?” Ned asked incredulously. Peter realized how little sense it made for Spider-Man to show up injured at Ned’s house without ever having met him so he quickly thought up a lie, and did his best to disguise his voice. 

“I was injured about a block away,” he said quickly, though it was more like 10 blocks away. “I managed to land in your yard, but I needed somewhere to rest, and I couldn’t stay out in a yard. Can I trust you?” he asked. Ned nodded frantically and then looked him over.

“Shit you’re really hurt aren’t you? Your leg is bleeding really badly,” Ned said his voice full of a familiar concern. Peter nodded and Ned was out of the room quickly, probably to get a first aid kit. Peter let himself lay back on the beanbag chair in the corner of Ned’s room, careful not to get any blood on it. 

When Ned came back, he was holding a first aid kit and had a funny look on his face when he looked at Peter. There was still concern, but there was something else there, too. Ned came over and sat next to him, pulling a few things out of the first aid kid. He pulled out some gauze and poured antiseptic on it before dabbing at the wound, making Peter wince. 

 

Ned looked up at him with an apologetic expression, “Sorry,” he murmured, continuing. Thankfully the gash seemed to have stopped bleeding by that point, but he was going to need to talk to Mr. Stark about how to fix the suit. He was pulled out of his thoughts when Ned asked, “So what happened?”

Peter shrugged, and then winced at the pain in his arm. “I was chasing down a bad guy and I miscalculated my landing. I ended up hitting a building pretty hard before falling into a dumpster,” he let out a weak laugh. “That sounds pretty pathetic now that I think of it,” he said, giving another frail chuckle. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you that.” Peter looked back at Ned who was just looking at him with a wide eyed expression. “What?” He asked, worry flooding into his mind as to what Ned could be thinking. 

“Oh my god, Peter?” Ned said more than asked, his voice sounding incredulous. Apparently Peter was very bad at disguising his voice. 

“What? Who’s Peter? That’s not me! I’ve never even met anyone named Peter,” He said a little frantically, probably not helping his case in the matter at all. Ned reached out and quickly yanked off the mask, surprising the hell out of Peter. They both gaped at one another, wide eyed and surprised for a moment before Peter weakly put up jazz hands and said “surpriiise,” promptly fainting from the pain finally catching up to him.

When he came to, Ned was hovering over him and swearing, clearly extremely worried. He really wished that he could have just fainted his way out of the problem, but alas he’d have to deal with Ned knowing his secret, and eventually, all it entailed. He pretended to be passed out for just a bit longer before opening his eyes and groaning. 

“Peter, oh my god! Thank god you’re okay!” Ned said, his relief evident in his voice. Peter sat up with a grimace and looked up at Ned with a weak smile. That’s when Ned’s expression changed to something a bit more upset rather than relieved. 

“What the hell, Peter?”

“I know I--”

“No seriously, what the hell? You let me tell you about how I have a huge crush on you for months without saying anything about it at all, I probably made a huge fool of myself! What, were you laughing about it behind my back or something?”

“No! Ned I--”

“No, I’m not finished! Then you have the gall to show up at my house on the brink of death and lie to me some more about what’s been going on with you? I feel like such a loser, I can’t believe you would do this to me!” 

“No! Ned, listen! I never wanted to hurt you! You started telling me how much you were into Spider-Man, and it made me feel like I was competing against myself for your attention, because I’ve kind of been in love with you for a long time and I had no idea how to tell you that. This isn’t really the ideal way to do it either, but I was always just so afraid that if I told you the truth that you’d just be disappointed that it was me. And I haven’t even told anyone about this! I never wanted anyone to find out!” Peter took a deep breath to pause his frantic rambling, looking at Ned, “I’m really sorry, Ned, this is not how any of this was supposed to go.” 

Ned’s face softened. He still looked upset, but there was more understanding. He sighed. “No, I’m not disappointed it’s you. I... well I’ve had feelings for you for a long time too, but you just seemed so unattainable, and I didn’t want to ruin our friendship, so then I started talking about an actually unattainable crush on Spider-Man, because I figured it was harmless and that it would be distracting, but of course that’s not my luck...but I guess I am kind of lucky considering both of my crushes were actually the same person, that makes it a little less complicated now that I know they both like me back,” Ned said with a small smile. Peter returned the smile, still looking somewhat apologetic. 

“I’m so sorry Ned, it really wasn’t supposed to happen like this… But… Now that leaves us with the question of what to do about the fact that we both happen to like each other?” Peter asked hopefully. Ned looked at him with a soft smile and sighed. 

“I’m still mad that you were lying to me...but I guess I understand why. And I think, if you really want to be with me, then I want to be with you too,” Ned said softly. Peter stood up, wincing at the slowly ebbing pain in his leg, and he pulled Ned into a kiss. Ned didn’t instantly reciprocate, more than a little surprised, but he leaned into it after a second. When Peter pulled back he was beaming.

**Author's Note:**

> So I hope you liked this! I plan on making a few more one shots for these boys because it's what the deserve. I will fill this tag myself if I have to. If you want to come bug my on tumblr @sarahkatlinewalker
> 
> Edit: I had a friend edit it to make it a bit cleaner, also if you want a made a playlist for interwebs: https://open.spotify.com/user/sarahkatlinewalker/playlist/0O2LAE4ZmnPvEKL43IYTur?si=207EHfPbRhGP3KDWPZikNw


End file.
